Today at the Editor’s glance: A motorcade parade scheduled for today in Bunnell to commemorate Martin Luther King Day has been canceled. The parade was to set off from the Carver Center, head to U.S. 1, and back to the Center by way of Martin Luther King Boulevard. The parade was canceled in light of the killing of 16-year-old Noah Smith on Wednesday in Bunnell. The sheriff said there’s been intimations of retaliatory action, and has warned against that. The prayer breakfast scheduled at the Carver Center is still on, however. While the observed holiday is on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. was in fact born on this day in 1929 in Atlanta. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was assassinated by a white supremacist in Memphis in 1968. Mass Appeal,” a two-character play at the Flagler Playhouse, opens at 7:30 p.m. The play was written by Bill Davis in 1980. The comedy-drama is about the popular but conventional and conservative Father Tim Farley who gets challenged by a rabble-rousing seminarian called Mark Dolson, first about the ordination of women, then about other matters. Book tickets here. Flagler Playhouse, 301 E Moody Blvd, Bunnell.
Now this:
The Live Calendar is a compendium of local and regional political, civic and cultural events. You can input your own calendar events directly onto the site as you wish them to appear (pending approval of course). To include your event in the Live Calendar, please fill out this form.
December 2025
Holiday Plant Class Series
ESL Bible Studies for Intermediate and Advanced Students
Grace Community Food Pantry on Education Way
Palm Coast Farmers’ Market at European Village
‘Annie,’ at Limelight Theatre
‘Greetings,’ A Christmas Comedy
Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn
Al-Anon Family Groups
Handel’s Messiah at Palm Coast United Methodist Church
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
In Court: Ex-Firefighter James Melady Trial
Groundbreaking for Flagler County Fire Station 51
Flagler County Library Board of Trustees
Nar-Anon Family Group
Rotary’s Fantasy Lights Festival in Palm Coast’s Town Center
For the full calendar, go here.
“I call great men all those who have excelled in the useful and the agreeable. Plunderers of provinces are merely heroes.”
–From a letter by Voltaire to Nicolas Claude Thieriot, July 15, 1735.
James M. Mejuto says
If those damning ads for ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ are not removed, then I will delete your site from my computer.
James M. Mejuto
Pierre Tristam says
James, a couple of pointers: the ads you see on your computer are generated by Google according to your browsing history. In other words, if you’d recently searched for, say, Dell computers, you’d have seen ads for Dell computers. The fact that you’re seeing those ads suggests you brought up sites that somehow relate to that. Second point: you’ve been a frequent presence and commenter here at FlaglerLive. But I’m not fond of readers who, under any circumstance, give us ultimatums or make their readership conditional. So while the ads you see have nothing to do with what we do on our end, I would invite you to just go ahead and delete us from your reading list anyway. We only value readers who value us.
Ray W. says
On a fateful day nearly 20 years ago, I read a federal trial judge’s set of factual findings on which he based his ruling that the News-Journal owed Cox publishing company some $200(+) million, plus a multi-million-dollar sum awarded to Cox’s legal team. Several years later, I read the appellate court’s opinion upholding that ruling. I wondered how such an apparently profitable business could be forced to sell the entire business in order to satisfy a 45% shareholder interest held by Cox, because it could not borrow enough money to pay the sum listed in the ruling. I wondered how the News-Journal’s legal team could recommend that the newspaper’s ownership team should elect a statutory buy-out option, given the fact that should be obvious to any experienced lawyer that the ultimate valuation of the newspaper would be made by an as-yet unnamed judge who, arguably, would possess a limited range of the overall economic background that would be necessary to validly sift through the complex valuations that would be provided to him or her by competing teams of expert witnesses.
At the time of the federal trial judge’s initial ruling, rumblings were already being heard and written that the modern newspaper business that had thrived throughout a growing liberal democratic Constitutional republic for well over a century was about to undergo a significant change. The growing influence of the internet was posing challenges to print media, though at that time the first iPhone was still in the planning phase. No one could foresee the overall changes that technology would bring. Frankly, in hindsight, it appears that the trial judge’s acceptance of the valuation presented by Cox’s team of economic experts was an error in judgment, but the wide disparity between the valuation submitted by the News-Journal’s team and that submitted by Cox meant the trial judge had to choose between the two submissions, with the law allowing him no discretion to choose a third option.
At that time, few individuals possessed the financial backing and experience necessary to operate a print newspaper, much less open a new operation, though some companies and individuals were establishing online news businesses.
Today, the News-Journal still operates as a print news organization; and, it has greatly expanded its online operations. Now, the paper appears to be a significant part of a third post-ruling ownership group. I now read in-depth articles derived from locations from much farther reaches around the state that fill an ever slimmer and smaller-paged publication. I note that an ever-smaller number of local reporters are covering an ever-wider range of topics. The Opinion section is now published twice per week. The sports section now addresses high school football coverage of 23 teams ranging from New Smyrna Beach to Ponte Vedra Beach. While I don’t know the actual numbers, I suspect that the overall staff has been reduced to as little as one-third of the existing staff in 2004. Advertising and circulation staff has likely been cut as well. I read stories and articles of how vulture capitalism has descended on newsrooms all across America. Flagship national newspapers that once operated from wholly owned multi-story buildings, complete with international teams of journalists, have been bought out by these well-funded organizations and now operate out of rented office space, with whatever few reporters that remain now handling larger and larger numbers of assignments remotely, with the once-proud buildings having been sold to increase dividend payouts to investors. Subscription rates have risen far faster than the pace of inflation, again to satisfy investor demands and to offset losses in advertising revenue.
Out of the above-described wave of “creative destruction”, both from economic forces and management decisions without and within the News-Journal, arose FlaglerLive. Mr. Tristam, as an opinion columnist and a journalist who operates as a bastion of journalistic ethics rising above a sea of Flagler-based partisan politics wholly lacking in ethics of any kind, should be applauded for the long hours and accumulated knowledge that goes into bringing to all readers his FlaglerLive publication. To quote Milton, whose words have graced the mantle of the News-Journal’s Opinion page for as long as I can remember (my earliest route was in 1967, with over 120 customers in the wintertime): “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all other liberties.”
Thank you, Mr. Tristam.
Pierre Tristam says
Ray, your recapitulation brought back some difficult memories of those years, 2008, 2009, when we could see the history of the newspaper, which was not without its own miscalculations, be reduced to those rulings, and eventually to receivership. At least it gave some of us time to prepare, which is how FlaglerLive was planned. Thank you for the very kind words and the your continuing contributions here as you and your family continue to leave their mark on this state’s East Coast.
LetsBeReal says
The newspaper business has gone done hill since the 70’s and 80’s because of the Internet. The News Journal is not even printed on 6th Street in Daytona Beach. The newspapers are truck in from Lakeland and Gainesville Florida. Comics will be truck in from Sarasota Florida. Circulation is way down. After March 28, 2022 there will no longer be a Saturday paper.